DeStefano Legacy: The New Haven Model

November 04, 2013|Rick Green

The "what ifs" linger long after a visit with John DeStefano, now closing in on his final weeks after a remarkable 20-year marathon as mayor of the Elm City.

What if DeStefano, smothered by M. Jodi Rell during a disastrous run for governor in 2006, had managed to persuade more than Democratic stalwarts around the state that his vision was right for Connecticut?

The result could have been a Connecticut a little more like New Haven, a community of neighborhoods with a youthful vibrancy, from bikes to biotech, that shames other cities in the state.

Would we be grabbing hold of more of our young bright minds and attracting creative new businesses? Would teacher unions be working with the state on reform? Would we be carefully and strategically targeting the kind of industries we want to build our future economy around? Under Gov. DeStefano, we might even be talking about the real tax crisis facing Connecticut — reforming the colonial era property tax.

"How was I able to survive 10 election cycles? Part of it was recognizing the city was changing and reaching out to constituencies that were new,'' DeStefano explained to me as we ducked into Blue State Coffee on the edge of Yale campus one early autumn afternoon. "Leaders ought to lead. You've got to engage the electorate with ideas and direction."

And you've got to know when you can seize a moment.

When DeStefano embraced the idea of a residency card for undocumented residents in 2007, New Haven was criticized across the country. But the cards, which gave city residents the legal proof to do things like open bank accounts or to communicate with local police, are a so-what issue today. This year, the state legislature approved giving driver licenses to the undocumented while Congress moves closer to actually enacting immigration reform.

"The thing with immigrants, of course, was more a case of 'are we are going to welcome these folks?' They are central to the vitality of the city,'' said DeStefano, who announced earlier this year that he would not seek another term as mayor. "That, to me, was like going from nowhere [to going] forward to some place.''

Paul Bass, a New Haven journalist who has followed DeStefano for three decades, said the mayor's savvy embrace of immigration reform was both "his shining moment" and good for the city.

"When Danbury was kicking them out, he was bringing them in," said Bass, editor and founder of the New Haven Independent online news site.

"He's been a very good mayor. Not perfect. He learned a lot in office," Bass said. "He believes government can work. He goes against the modern American political assumption."

With New Haven's schools, DeStefano spent much of his tenure doing what mayors often do — putting up new buildings. But after years of seeing relatively little improvement in the students, he saw an opportunity in 2008, when the American Federation of Teachers was entrenched in an ugly standoff in Washington, D.C., and his own city schools were stagnating.

DeStefano, looking for that carpe diem moment again, invited AFT President Randi Weingarten to New Haven to help forge a new teacher's contract. The result, after months of negotiation, was a contract now cited as a model for all cities because it emphasizes teacher accountability — and job evaluations that include student performance — but makes educators part of the process. It stands in stark contrast to the state's education reform efforts, which unions have fought, bitterly at times.

"It was an opportunity to put this together and come up with a New Haven model and do something extraordinary," DeStefano says about the school contract. "I couldn't have done school reform in 2006. In 2008, we drove a big truck through that [open] opportunity."

So, while the "angry John" tales are legendary, the stories that matter are about a mayor willing to focus — and sometimes to re-focus — on what works in a diverse, 20-square-mile city of activists living in the shadow of Yale University.

"He seemed a little too inflexible at times,'' said state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield, who briefly ran to succeed DeStefano earlier this year. "But you've got to give a lot of credit to the mayor. Whether you like his style or not, most people agree that he could run the ship."

There remains much unfinished work. Crime is still a major problem, though in DeStefano fashion, he has more recently re-emphasized community policing after years of cutbacks because city residents demanded it. In recent days, there have been two murders in New Haven, once again leaving politicians, including DeStefano, grasping for ways to make the city safer. This year in New Haven, the murder rate is up but overall crime rates — including non-fatal shootings — are down.

Meanwhile, under DeStefano leadership, taxes rose steadily in New Haven; this year alone local property taxes rose by 5 percent. The city's bond rating has also dropped.